Proof of Concept “Challenge” trials

In order to determine whether something is healthy, it is important to be able to assess human health. One way of assessing health is to look at the body’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances and to show sufficient resilience under conditions of social, physical and emotional disturbance (challenge).

The resistance enhancing effect of your food ingredient

NIZO developed human challenge models for determining how the human body can cope with such ´challenges’ to infection resistance. In these models we apply moderate stresses, such as a vaccination or a gut or respiratory infection.

NIZO has developed challenge studies in healthy subjects. Basically, these challenge studies include a control group and a group that receives potentially resistance boosting ingredients who are afterwards both exposed to an attenuated (i.e. debilitated) gut or respiratory pathogen.

At NIZO, we can perform randomised controlled trials in healthy adults with:

A challenge with an oral cholera vaccine

A challenge with an oral attenuated diarrheagenic E. coli strain (cause of travellers’ diarrhoea and gastroenteritis).